Discomfort part of free speech

Mr. Jack Daniels, freedom of speech doesn't apply only when it is agreeable or pleasant. It's also for speech that could contradict, and, get this, even ridicule any deeply held beliefs you may have.

We instinctively interpret a particular one-finger gesture to mean a certain phrase in our everyday language, a phrase that to some may be offensive, but just because something is offensive to a person, or even many people, doesn't mean it's something that should be forbidden. If a person made the lights appear in a shape of a cross, could the Indians or any other group of people that has been oppressed by that Christian symbol yell that it's offensive and have it removed?

Christ will always be kept in Christmas. Christmas simply means "Christ's mass" - the festival of the Christ's birth. So to replace the word Christ in Christmas would simply be a silly idea, or just describe the mass of another individual. With that being said, Dec. 25 doesn't, and shouldn't, have to be celebrated with just the idea of Christ's mass in mind. The date itself was a day of celebration, and recognition well before Jesus. This was a pagan holiday celebrating the sun-god. In Rome, the week preceding the solstice was the Saturnalia, an orgiastic festival that concluded with gift-giving and candle lighting, sound familiar? Early Christians used the date to win converts, as it gave them something of their tradition while introducing a new one.

The date of Dec. 25 never appears in the Bible itself, and actually the first time it appears to be mentioned as Jesus's nativity dates to 354 C.E. So, as you see, Dec. 25 has been a day of celebration, recognition and importance to a wide variety of people, for a multitude of reasons, and it continues to be so today.

No one day belongs to a specific group of people, and the freedom of speech doesn't just apply to those who hold our same thoughts. As for us, Mr. Daniels, those of us who keep the holidays, holy-days, like you referred to Ms. Esman as, we too, are part of the people, the people as a whole, the people who share our same ideas and even, and maybe even more importantly, those who don't. That difference of opinion, that variety of thoughts that can be shared and expressed, that is what makes us, we the people, a great nation.

Colin Browder

West Monroe

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Discomfort part of free speech

Mr. Jack Daniels, freedom of speech doesn't apply only when it is agreeable or pleasant. It's also for speech that could contradict, and, get this, even ridicule any deeply held beliefs you may have.